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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
exciting conversations for 3 orchestras!,
By
This review is from: Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gruppen / Punkte (Audio CD)
I can only discuss "Gruppen", and do so because I know this piece well, and am displeased with 2 of the other reviews offered. Most of the latter I cannot make any sense of at all, and I will not make any pretense at doing so. This music is for the listener sitting before his Hi Fi, and not a mathematician, or an analyst trying to follow with a copy of the score. A roller coaster ride is enjoyable merely for the experience itself - the mathematics of the angles and bends and speed versus gradient etc are irrelevant to this entertainment. I enjoy "Gruppen" because it is a fascinating dialogue between groups or soloists of a large ensemble of musicians. There is one section, for instance, where a trombone and piano seem to be trying to imitate each other. It is exciting, playfull, humorous at times, colourfull, and the experience is on a grand scale! It doesn't seem to be trying to say anything; no moods and certainly no gloom and doom, and no pointless gaps of silence or meditation. It's just a wonderfull concert of orchestral chatter in which you cannot guess what's going to happen next. You don't have to have any special training to be able to enjoy this experience!
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic 1950s Modernism played by an expert,
This review is from: Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gruppen / Punkte (Audio CD)
To get to the point: (1) this is one of Stockhausen's best pieces; it influenced Boulez' own orchestral writing (in Pli selon pli and Figures/Doubles/Prismes, for instance), and was ripped off by Berio (in Tempo e Tempi, I think); it superimposes different tempi, as did Zeitmasse for wind quintet, although in much denser form (and is thus comparable to Carter's orchestral work from the Orchestra Variations onwards). Robin Maconie, author of the definitive book on Stockhausen, thinks "Gruppen" was influenced by the dense textures and spatial experiments of American orchestral music (Ives, Brant). (2) Peter Eotvos is a veteran who has been working with Stockhausen for at least 40 years or so (he was part of the Stockhausen Ensemble in the 1960s, together with Kontarsky, Johannes Fritsch, perhaps Christoph Caskel). (3) One of the reviewers is slightly wrong about "Punkte," which is an earlier piece (1952) than Gruppen (1955-57), not later (although it was revised in 1962). (4) There is another CD performance of this piece by Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic, but Eotvos is very worth having. (5) This music is indeed unjustly neglected, as reviewer notes. It may be hard going, but is also quite spectacular (as in the build-up to the climax, which comes fairly near the beginning, and is led up to with plucked strings and percussion from all three orchestras). The way the orchestras throw long held wind chords around the space points straight ahead to "Carre" and to parts of "Pli selon pli" (first movement, "Don"), as noted. You will rarely hear this live, since it requires many more rehearsal hours than anyone but a European state-subsidized orchestral can afford (i.e. the Suedwestfunk, once upon a time...).
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Quintessential Stockhausen Orchestral Disc,
By R. Hutchinson "autonomeus" (a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gruppen / Punkte (Audio CD)
When I started listening to contemporary classical music (aka Neuemusik, or New Music) in 2000, the name Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) loomed large over that soundscape. It was quite frustrating to find that very little of his extensive output was widely available. At that time he had asserted copyright control and most of the recordings of his music were available only from his own Stockhausen-Verlag company in Germany by airmail, with astronomical handling charges. What little Stockhausen I heard was not at all impressive, and I decided to move on to other sounds.
The situation dramatically changed with the release of this Budapest Music Center disc in 2006. These are superb recordings of "Gruppen" and "Punkte," two major Stockhausen compositions for orchestra, with Peter Eotvos leading the WDR Sinfonieorchester Koln, recorded in 1997 and 2004. Eotvos (b. 1944), the Hungarian composer and conductor, was a regular member of the Stockhausen Ensemble from 1968 to 1976, and so has an intimate working knowledge of Stockhausen's scores and thinking about how they should be performed. Stockhausen was long based in Koln (Cologne), and "Gruppen" was commissioned by, first performed by, and first recorded by the WDR, so clearly this is the most authoritative orchestra to perform the legendary work. (WDR stands for Westdeutscher Rundfunk, or West German Radio.) "Gruppen (Groups) for 3 orchestras" (1955-57 -- 24'30) is written for an orchestra of 108 players, divided into three groups of 36. Each group is about half strings and the other half equal numbers of woodwinds, brass, and percussion, the percussion both pitched and unpitched. "Gruppen" was pathbreaking in many ways. Theoretically it was an example of total serialism, an attempt to rigorously structure every aspect of the composition. The instrumentation is unorthodox, emphasizing percussion and deemphasizing strings. Spatialization is central to the sound, with the three groups placed to the front, left and right of the audience, with sounds moving dynamically, leaping, sometimes hurtling, from one group to another. The three groups play simultaneously at different tempos, requiring three conductors. Of course much of this is lost on record, but Stockhausen himself thought this Eotvos recording was the best yet when released in 2006, and made it available through his own mail order website. Contrary to what one might imagine, "Gruppen" is actually a quite delicate tracery of sound, not a massive onslaught. According to Stockhausen, it is actually a synthesis of orchestral, chamber and solo music. Lacking melody, repetition, sonata form, and other recognizable features, "Gruppen" is a journey into unknown terrain. One way to think of it is Webern's "Symphony (Op. 21)" expanded in every dimension. "Punkte for orchestra" (1952/62/94 -- 26'24), as Richard Toop notes in the liner notes, "is both earlier and later than 'Gruppen'." The first version was composed in 1952, but Stockhausen replaced it with the chamber work "Kontra-Punkte," and did not publish it until ten years later. It premiered at Donaueschingen in 1963. More changes were made in 1966, and the version here was finalized in 1993. While not as pathbreaking as "Kontra-Punkte," "Gruppen," or "Gesang der Junglinge," in its own right "Punkte" is a powerful, radical work. In fact I find it to be more immediately gripping than "Gruppen," which requires more concentration. Using a unified orchestra and longer tones, it has a greater sense of purpose and momentum. *** *** *** Here is a list of extant recordings of "Gruppen" along with a recent and a forthcoming performance: FIRST RECORDING (1965) WDR -- Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bruno Maderna & Michael Gielen conducting This is the recording found on Stockhausen Edition No. 5 available from Stockhausen-Verlag. (And perhaps available on vinyl...) The premiere performance was by the WDR on March 24, 1958 with Stockhausen, Maderna, and Pierre Boulez conducting. ABBADO & the BERLIN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA (1994) The BPO is led by Claudio Abbado, Friedrich Goldmann and Marcus Creed in this recording. It seems generally acknowledged that it is not as authoritative an account as those by the WDR. RATTLE & the CITY OF BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (mid-1990s) Simon Rattle, John Carewe and Daniel Harding are the conductors of this performance, available as Volume 6 in the DVD series "Leaving Home: Orchestral Music in the 20th Century." It was recorded in Birmingham as part of the CBSO's Toward the Millennium Series. This is a stealth version that I only just discovered, and I haven't come across any reviews, but apparently Stockhausen himself knew of it, and thought this Eotvos recording to be better. Now of course leading the Berlin Philharmonic, Rattle led a live performance of "Gruppen" in the Fall of 2008 at the close of the Berlin Festival, along with Daniel Harding and Michael Boder. They performed in Hangar 2 of Tempelhof Airport shortly before it closed, a 45 thousand-square-foot space in the massive, now largely abandoned structure in central Berlin. Despite the fact that it really doesn't seem like his cup of tea, Alex Ross wrote a glowing review. And finally, "Gruppen" is going to be performed in NYC for the first time since 1965! The NY Philharmonic's music director Alan Gilbert has scheduled it for June 29-30, 2012, at the Park Avenue Armory at E25th St. He will lead it along with two neumusik composers, Magnus Lindberg of Finland and Matthias Pintscher of Germany, in a program also including spatial works by Boulez, Ives and Mozart (!). *** *** *** This disc was seemingly unavailable for some time shortly after its release. It seems to be quite accessible now, but who knows how long that will last? This is The Quintessential Stockhausen Orchestral Disc, with far-out psychedelic cover art, so act accordingly. And if you're looking for more Stockhausen, check out The Quintessential Stockhausen Chamber Music Disc with four seminal 1950s pieces performed and recorded in 2008 and 2009 with panache by the ensemble recherche.
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